Book recommendation: The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman

I found on my library shelf this audiobook, which I’d read about on Neil Gaiman’s journal. It’s my first experience of a story with its own soundtrack, and it was very, very good. String instruments are the best.

It was also my first encounter with the story itself, and I’m glad I experienced it this way: in Neil Gaiman’s voice, with the string quartet setting each scene perfectly (though I really ought to look for the illustrated version, to appreciate the art as well). He reads very well, great inflection for both dialogue and narration.

No spoilers here — just a strong recommendation to look up this audiobook and experience it for yourselves. Also, assorted notes and appreciation of what Neil Gaiman does so well:

I don’t know why I’m always startled by how dark and horrifying his work can be (maybe because his online persona is so nice), but he startles me every time.

He does love to explore the dark old things that live hidden away in the earth.

Very slow introduction of characters (even first-person protagonists) and place, sometimes without ever naming them outright — just giving you enough to make the deductions. He doesn’t treat his readers like idiots. I was able to guess pretty early on that this took place in Scotland, but I had to look up later “the king across the water,” and I’m still not certain what…type…the protagonist’s father was.

More on how he builds his setting: so subtly, just a few details here and there, including how people live in the land the protagonist is passing through. I also really liked the fortune teller scene.

I have high appreciation for the details he pays to realism, even in a world that allows for the possibility of magic: like what the characters ate every day, how they got by. That’s some of my favorite details to read.

But I don’t know what price the protagonist paid for the bone awl.

I definitely pictured the protagonist’s golden-red-haired daughter as Merida of Brave, a movie I haven’t seen yet. Yes, even in the cave.